


Risk Assessment

by SylvanWitch



Series: Risky Business [1]
Category: Magnum P.I. (TV 2018)
Genre: Banter, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:02:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22166089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: Who knew getting shot would work out so well?
Relationships: Gordon Katsumoto/Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV
Series: Risky Business [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1603222
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	Risk Assessment

**Author's Note:**

> For my personal prompts bingo card square: "Give it to me straight, Doc."

“Give it to me straight, Doc: Will I ever play the piano again?” 

Magnum turned on his warmest smile, the one that had garnered lascivious looks from cougars, co-eds, hardened men in camo with big guns…

No one could accuse him of discriminating: Thomas Magnum was an equal opportunity flirt.

And he wasn’t a tease, either. Given the right circumstances…

But these weren’t those.

The ER doctor, a steel-haired, grim-faced woman with a seen-it-all thousand-yard stare and an iron grip on her iPad gave him a terse look, shook her head, and said, “Make sure you take these as prescribed,” handing him a scrip for painkillers.

Higgins deftly plucked it from him and said, “Let’s go,” with a hand on his elbow as if she was going to force him out of the hospital.

Magnum slipped easily out of her hold as they left the overcool air of the hospital lobby for the muggy heat outside and shook his head. “I’m not headed home, Higgy. We’ve still got a case to solve.”

Since said case had gotten him shot through his left biceps already, Higgy’s look of cross impatience was not entirely unexpected.

What Magnum _hadn’t_ foreseen was Det. Gordon Katsumoto replacing Higgins on his good side, firm grip on his arm and low voice in his ear, “Get in the car.”

Higgins gave him a knowing smirk and toodled her fingers at him, from one of which dangled the Ferrari keys. Obviously, she’d copped them from his pocket when she’d gotten close.

Sighing, recognizing defeat when it tightened its hold on his arm, Magnum allowed himself the briefest moment to relax into Katsumoto’s grip, let him take some of the weight.

The truth was, Magnum hated getting shot. The blood didn’t bother him, but pain tended to play hell with his stomach, and he was still feeling a little queasy as Katsumoto opened the passenger side door of his police issue unmarked and, with more gentleness than Magnum might have expected, helped him down into the front seat.

He let his head fall back against the headrest and waited for Gordon to get in on the other side. He knew before he felt the man along his flank that Gordon was leaning over him to assist him into his seatbelt. Given his injury, he hadn’t wanted to even try it himself, an uncharacteristic lack of stubbornness. Maybe he was growing up.

Maybe he was just tired.

“Thanks,” he murmured, surprised by the way he slurred the sibilant at the end there. He must have been worse off than he’d thought.

He didn’t even feel Katsumoto put the car in gear.

Magnum swam slowly up out of the grey, becoming aware of his surroundings in pieces: a whiff of salty air, the thunder of breakers, the sound of gulls.

Beach, then.

And beside him, Gordon Katsumoto speaking quietly into his phone.

Magnum opened his eyes, relieved to discover it wasn’t much later, judging by the quality of light. He took a brief inventory of his physical state: The sutured bullet hole was throbbing in time with his heartbeat, but the pain was manageable. He was still nauseated, but he thought if he could eat something, he’d feel better. He was bone-tired, and that worried him the most.

On the SEALs, Magnum had been a force of nature; only a gut wound could put him down hard enough to keep him down.

As injuries went, this one was minor, so it bothered him that he felt heavy as lead and that focusing his eyes took effort.

“Why’re we here?” he asked when he heard Katsumoto end his call. Magnum swiveled his head against the headrest to take in the detective’s profile.

Katsumoto didn’t look at Magnum but rather straight ahead. 

For as pretty as Magnum knew he was, he couldn’t compete with the view from this overlook: Soaring green-black cliffs to the right, enormous breakers like white horses racing to crash against the wide white beach, gulls hanging in impossible still life in the deep blue sky.

“I’m a little tired of getting calls about you,” Katsumoto began, and Magnum felt suddenly, unreasonably irritated by that.

“So sorry I got shot on your watch, Detective. I’ll check your duty roster next time before I put myself in mortal danger.”

He was exaggerating both the peril he’d been in and the sarcasm. He did that sometimes when he was caught off-guard. It was the on the same spectrum as his flirting, in fact: Push him hard enough, and the laid-back, laissez-faire demeanor he usually wore burned away in a sudden flare of heat.

Anger or sex, it was all passion, and passion had been his undoing more than once.

“Shut up,” Katsumoto said distinctly and turned to look at Magnum.

There was anger in Gordon’s eyes and something else, something Magnum couldn’t identify but that made him uncomfortable.

That triggered another of his favorite defense mechanisms.

“Or what, Detective?” he asked silkily, calling Katsumoto’s bluff. It was a dangerous gambit—he knew he was playing with the proverbial fire. But Magnum didn’t seem to mind getting burned, given the breadth and scope of some of the disastrous choices he’d made in his life.

Katsumoto’s hand, big and hot against the back of his neck, his strength hauling him ungently across the center console, his mouth hard and demanding on Magnum’s own—this too was fire, this too disaster.

So, Magnum did the third thing he was best at: He let go of control, let risk have its way with him.

He opened his mouth on a greedy sound and surged against the seatbelt, which pressed hard against the bandage on his left arm, lighting him up with a secondary fire.

Ignoring the pain, he reached across himself to undo the belt so that he could get closer to Gordon, who by this time had his hand on Magnum’s good arm, apparently trying to slow him down.

“Too late for that, Gordy” he whispered, having at last gotten free of his seatbelt and slipped the strap of the sling off his shoulder so he was more mobile still.

The front seat of a sedan wasn’t the best place for two grown men to tussle, but Magnum wasn’t dissuaded by the awkward angle or the pain in his arm, not when his senses were full of Gordon’s taste—coffee, dark and bitter—and scent, aftershave and morning rain—and the sound of him breaking the kiss to pant and swear, his breath damp on Magnum’s jaw and throat.

“We can’t do this here,” Gordon said, getting a vice grip on Magnum’s good arm to hold him off. Magnum, being an ex-SEAL and all, could have broken his grip and pressed his point, but, also because he was an ex-SEAL, his situational awareness was excellent, and he recognized that Gordon had a point.

“My place is closer,” Magnum observed.

“Mine comes without a major domo,” Gordon countered.

“Fair point,” Magnum conceded, pleased to note that Gordon’s cheeks were flushed and his trousers a little too snug.

“But we’re not going there,” Gordon continued, sitting back in his seat, straightening his shirt, and smoothing out his hair.

“We’re not?” Magnum could be forgiven for being a little slow to read between the lines. Adrenaline and arousal were still zinging through him; his lips felt like they were buzzing, and now that he wasn’t distracted by the kissing, his arm hurt like a son of a bitch.

“You’ve been shot, Magnum. You need to rest. And I’m not taking advantage of your…altered…state.”

Gordon was looking at the view again instead of at Magnum, and he felt a little adrift.

“What ‘state’?” He sounded confused, and he hated that.

“You get off on the danger. You’re an adrenaline junkie. And you like to work out your excess energy in…alternate ways.” It wasn’t accusatory, not in that just-the-facts-ma’am tone.

It struck Magnum that Gordon knew him better than he’d thought, better than most people, actually. That thought left him feeling both exhilarated and terrified.

Since those were the feelings that had gotten him into this in the first place, he wasn’t sure what to say next.

“Look,” Gordon added in a warmer tone, turning to look at Magnum again. “Against my better judgment, I like you, and I’d like to see where we might take this…thing…we seem to have going on. But not today. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it right or not at all.”

Given Magnum’s track record with relationships, he wasn’t sure he knew what ‘doing it right’ looked like. Still, between his habit of throwing caution to the wind and Gordon’s cautious, methodical approach to problem-solving, how much trouble could Magnum get in?

“Okay,” he agreed, “So what does that mean?”

“It means you’re taking me out to dinner when you’re feeling better.”

“I am?”

“Yes. I figure it’s the least you can do for the scare you put into me today.”

It was a beautiful set-up for the kind of line that Magnum would have used in a heartbeat with any of the half-dozen guys he’d had a go-round with in the past, something about what he really wanted to put into Gordon.

But Gordon Katsumoto didn’t seem the type to appreciate that brand of humor, and anyway, weren’t they doing this ‘right’? And ‘right,’ by Gordon’s standards, obviously involved wining and dining and taking their time.

“I’ve got a better idea,” Magnum said. “When we wrap this case, Higgins has to go out of town for a few days. Why don’t you come by the guest house and let me make you dinner? Can’t beat the view.”

“The view would be the same wherever we went,” Gordon said, a fond smile curling up one corner of his mouth.

That smile knocked something loose in Magnum’s chest. 

“Oh, yeah? And what’s that?” he asked, keeping it soft, letting his own fondness wrinkle the corners of his eyes.

“Gorgeous,” Gordon said, as if that was the obvious answer, as if he said things like that to Magnum all the time. It didn’t sound like a line, and it went right to Magnum’s chest and set up shop there, a warm glow behind his breastbone.

He had a feeling he was grinning like a fool.

“Take me home, Gordon,” he said then. “I’ve got to get my beauty rest.”

Gordon rolled his eyes and deadpanned, “Oh, god. I’ve created a monster,” as he started the car and backed out of the space.

At Robin’s Nest, Higgins had parked the Ferarri by the guesthouse, and Gordon pulled up behind it. 

“Well,” Magnum said, suddenly self-conscious. “I’ll see you around,” reaching for the door handle, intending to escape with a minimum of awkwardness.

Of course, he’d forgotten his little seatbelt problem.

Gordon undid the clasp and worked the belt over Magnum’s bad arm, his touch easy and gentle, a knowing smile on his face when he looked up into Magnum’s.

It was natural to close the space between them, to brush his lips against Gordon’s, to murmur, “Thank you,” as he moved away, not so much retreating now as regrouping.

“I’ll call you,” he promised through the open window of the closed passenger door.

“You’d better,” Gordon warned, but a smile belied his characteristic sternness.

A thorough risk analysis would tell Magnum it was a bad idea to call the detective, to have him over to the house for a date, to see where this thing between them might go.

It was a good thing for the both of them, then, that Magnum had never met a risk he wouldn’t take if it meant feeling like he did just then, the memory of Gordon’s mouth and hands on him, the memory of his smile and words a warmth lodged behind his ribs, where it would be safe for a while.

Who knew getting shot would work out so well?


End file.
